Search form

You are here

Rye Sourdough with Spelt and soaker

Rye Sourdough with Spelt and soaker

Last week, I had some left over whole spelt flour, some corn meal, and some semolina in addition to a ripe Rye starter. Therefore, I decided to put them all to use in a new recipe as follows:

UPDATE** INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare the Rye sour by adding a tablespoon and a half of your active rye starter to the 250g water, and mix well to disperse. Add the Whole rye flour, mix well, and let stand for 8-12 hours at room temperature until the surface just starts to crack and collapse. To prepare the soaker, weigh all soaker ingredients into a bowl, and then weigh 160 grm of water, boil it, and add it to the soaker. Mix well, cover, and let stand until overnight, or when your rye sour is ready.

Next day, mix all ingredients at once, by hand or using a mixer for 5-10 minutes. The dough will remain relatively sticky, so try to resist adding any flour at this stage.Shape as a round and let ferment in an oiled bowl for 2 hours at preferably 78 F or 24-25C, folding it half way through at the 1 hour mark. By the end of bulk fermentation, the dough will have risen by 50-60%. scrape your dough onto a heavily floured surface, pat the dough even (Don't knead), divide into the desired dough pieces, and round each piece leaving them to rest for 15- 20 min, covered. Dust your basket with a mixture of all purpose flour and rice flour, and shape your dough and invert it smooth side down into the basket. The final fermentation will be only 45 minutes, but watch the dough NOT the clock. Preheat your oven at this stage with a stone in place to a 500F or 260C. 5 minutes before loading the bread, place your steaming dish filled with wet towels on the bottom of your oven. When ready, invert the dough on baking paper lined peel/ board and close the oven immediately. Bake for 15 minutes with steam, and then remove the steaming dish and reduce the temperature to 400F for another 20-25 minutes.

When the time is over, remove your bread from the oven. Wear oven mitts, and tap on the bottom of one loaf, It should sound hollow. Furthermore, you may insert a thermal probe into the center of the loaf from the bottom, and the temperature should register 195-200F or 90-95C. If it doesn't, put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes. Cool the bread completely on a wire rack, prior to cutting.

Due to the soaker, the aroma of this bread is really attractive. When cool, The crust was somewhat chewy, and the crumb slightly moist but not chewy. The flavor of this bread is earthy sweet and very pleasant. The crumb is close textured and compact due to all the whole grains, the bread might have benefited from extra lightness by increasing bread/all purpose flour.

I have eaten this bread thinly sliced with a spread of cheese, and it was fabulous. This bread keeps really well.

Comments

I'm always impressed with how expert bakers like you and Ian and dbm can scan your pantry and conjure up a formula that bakes out at nicely as this one did for you. Sign of an expert. I'll bet the flavor disappointment you described with one of your recent bakes doesn't apply here! Corn, rye, spelt, semolina...man, this must taste great. Plus superb shaping and dramatic bloom (Floyd -- headline material here, no?). Great crumb for a bread with 50% gluten-challenged flours. 31% prefermented flour (incl. rye & spelt) kinda shortens the proof -- no waiting till midnight for the bread to come out!

Nice baking Khalid, and two thumbs up for your documentation as well - great photos and easy on the eyes [and brain] spreadsheet. Thanks for sharing.

Now, any bread with a good rye sour and a soaker that contains corn and semolina just has to taste great. This bread is assertively Rye, and should be cut and consumed as one. The spelt also adds to the darkness and denseness of the bread, so you may consider this as a 50% rye-like bread.

I like the simple recipe layout of Hamelman, it is easier to discern than others i've come across.

ears on these batards are decent enough to be called fabulous. This is the kind of healthy bread you can eat every day and never get tired of it. It has to taste as good as it looks inside and out. Very nice baking Khalid. It's good to get you back on track taste wise. I'm thinking if you, Ian and I had a baking club, we would have to let Toady Tom in not just because he is a good bread baker but also because he has a good eye and is so nice! We like this bread a lot!

The useage of soaker has been a revelation to me, it salvages any flavor flaws you might end up with. You are absolutely wise in adding soakers to your wholegrain breads, as they tend to balance out the sourness from the starter with their sweetness. You'd have to be a well established baker to perfect a sourdough wholegrain recipe that does not contain a soaker.

What beautiful loaves! I am surprised by how quickly you dough fermented! Must have been the rye sour. I know when I use fresh rye things happen very quickly!

I know your family prefers the lighter breads so I am wondering how they like this one since it is definately not a light sandwich type of bread. I figure if they don't like it YOU get to eat it all :-)

That's a very nice formula and wonderful looking loaves, Khalid! I'm sure they taste just as good as they look, and the soaker ought to keep them fresh for days. As the rest, I'm also surprised how quick the final fermentation was. Did you notice that the dough was pretty well developed as you shaped them? With such a short final proof, you might be able to mix, ferment and bake it during a single evening session mid-week as well? Lovely bread, Khalid!

I haven't experimented with the majority of the ingredients you've used in your recipe, but if they were available to me, I know for certain that I'd buy them in bulk. If only I could get my hands on whole rye and spelt...

Like you, i have limited access to speciality flours like rye and spelt, as no store here carries them, save ofcourse spinneyes. Look around, you might end up with a speciality mill, or a store that carries them.

They were underproofed, so they burst open. I end up with such blooms only when i use two stones, one above the loaf, and one under it, both are preheated for an hour. Good steaming ( i use sylvia's steaming technique), and good scoring ( i learned from David (dmsnyder) , all contribute to the effect you see above. Oh and slightly underproofing also helps.

I want to try to bake this bread, but I don't understand how to make the rye sour. I already have a small quatity of rye starter, but how much do I need for 250 g of flour? Could you help me with some details? Thanks!

This is my ugly but tasty bread... :) The dough has risen too much during the first fermentation and I don't know why, the temperature in my kitchen is about 22 degrees C. I think I did a mistake when I mixed the water and the rye sour and then the other ingredients.

All original site content copyright 2015 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom. It is part of the Federated Media Publishing - Food channel. Click here for advertising information.